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NEW DELHI: For years, Preeti Gupta nursed a deep feeling of helplessness. The 42-year-old mother of three always wanted to do more for her children, but her farmer husband's limited earnings meant that those wishes would have remained just a dream.

Always a housewife who had never strayed out of home to work before, doing a job was hard to imagine, and, with her limited education - she has studied only until class seven - it was probably also hard to get.

Until a year ago. Gupta, who lives in Naglasabla, a rural hamlet on the outskirts of Agra, today is a much empowered woman, happy that she is now contributing equally to her household's earnings. The situation changed a year ago when Gupta borrowed some Rs 50,000 to set up a shop in her village.

Today she is one among a growing set of 1.5 lakh women retailers who run kirana shops that sell Coca-Cola beverages, one of the beneficiaries of US soft drinks giant Coca-Cola's global CEO Muhtar Kent's global vision to create five million women entrepreneurs globally by 2020.

An authorised retailer for Coca-Cola products such as fizzy drinks Coke and Thums Up, Minute Maid juices and Kinley water now, Gupta says opening her own shop was "the most important moment of my life". "It has made a considerable difference to my earnings," she says.

The story of Gupta and that of thousands like her are being shaped by Coca-Cola University's Parivartan programme, which trains women retailers in rural markets.

It is first of its kind in the soft drinks industry, and the latest in a series of similar efforts by fast moving consumer goods companies developing an unconventional sales channel that empowers people and, in the long term, possibly their own bottomlines.

Coca-Cola's move is somewhat similar to Anglo Dutch consumer goods giant Hindustan Unilever (HUL)'s rural micro-enterprise called Project Shakti. Project Shakti was a lowcost business model under which rural women entrepreneurs became direct-to-home distributors of Unilever brands in rural markets with population of less than 5,000.

"We are increasing access to training, cooling infrastructure and support networks within and outside our value chain, to help women build their businesses and support their families," Coca-Cola India and South West Asia President & CEO Atul Singh told ET.

Each retailer who signs up for Parivartan is trained by Coca-Cola for some 10 days and upon completing the programme gets a certificate of completion from the company and insurance of Rs 1 lakh for accidental death or premature disability.

In addition, women who don't have existing refrigeration are supplied with solar power-operated coolers - a Coca-Cola innovation called eKoCool which has the capacity to store and chill close to fifty 300-ml glass bottles.

On an all-India basis, Coca-Cola is sold in close to 21 lakh retail outlets. The Parivartan banner, which kicked off its first classroom training in 2007, began its women-only sessions last year.

The programme is conducted in classrooms and mobile classrooms in rural and semi-urban markets, which are provided with seating areas, presentation zones, audiovideos and on-board trainers. Industry experts say the move is progressive though it would require consistent efforts to build scale in the long run.

Says RK Shukla, consumer economy expert and former director at think-tank National Council of Applied Economic Research's (NCAER) Center for Macro Consumer Research (NCAER-CMCR): "The move will create opportunities for lowliterate women not only to support their families economically, but also to gain business exposure. The step also works for Coca-Cola in breaking ice in new markets."